J Trauma
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Comparative Study
Adult versus pediatric prehospital trauma care: is there a difference?
Management of the injured child in the prehospital setting continues to be debated. Issues raised in the literature include time spent on scene, skill maintenance and performance, and reported poorer outcomes compared with adults. ⋯ Paramedics are able to provide pediatric trauma patients a level of care comparable to that provided adult patients with similar outcome.
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We sought to obtain more reliable population-based data for injury epidemiology and trauma system evaluation by linking several sources. ⋯ Combining sources of data for injury victims can produce a resource more descriptive than any single source alone. However, computer-assisted record linkage still requires human review and corrections. Feedback of discrepancies to the individual data sources should further improve the quality of data available for linkage.
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Commotio cordis is a term used to describe cases of blunt thoracic impact causing fatality without gross structural damage of the heart and internal organs. Death is attributed to ventricular fibrillation or cardiac arrhythmia aggravated by traumatic apnea. The biomechanical response related to the risk of commotio cordis has not been determined. ⋯ Based on this in-depth analysis, the viscous criterion is the relevant biomechanical response to assess the risk of commotio cordis and more severe thoracic injury in high-speed blunt impact.